End Of A Wrestling Tradition

An annual tradition came to an end this morning.

Each January 4th, for the past handful of years, I’ve set my alarm to go off in order to give me enough time to wash, dress and get ready for that year’s NJPW WrestleKingdom. I would always stand in my shower, look up at the darkness through the window and think words along the lines of ‘the things I do for pro wrestling’.

This year is different, however. 

I feel this is a one, maybe two, march show. Three at a push. It didn’t matter if I opened my NJPW World app slightly later for this one. This year.

The main event of the night will see Hiroshi Tanahashi wrestle his last match. The retiree will square-off against Kazuchika Okada, who’s returning to New Japan for a one-off.

I haven’t missed much of the show. It seems like I have been tuned in since the second match of the main card. It's currently at the mid-point (if I were to guess).

The other match I am keen to see is the title .vs. title contest between IWGP World Heavyweight Champ - Konosuke Takeshita - and Yota Tsuji, the current IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion.

Today could be Tsuji's moment to become the standard bearer for New Japan Pro Wrestling. That's something I've been anticipating for well over a year.

As I am writing this, Aaron Wolf - an Olympic gold medallist in Judo - is set to make his professional wrestling debut. That's the third match I am pushed into caring about due to how newsworthiness of Wolf entering the business.